Paolo Uccello

Lore & Background

Paolo Uccello was born in 1397 in Pratovecchio, the son of Dono di Paolo, a barber-surgeon, and Antonia, a high-born Florentine. His nickname Uccello ('little bird') came from his fondness for painting birds. From 1412 to 1416 he was apprenticed to the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose late-Gothic, narrative style influenced him. He also began a lifelong friendship with Donatello. In 1414 he joined the painters' guild Compagnia di San Luca, and in 1415 the official painter's guild Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali.

Uccello worked in the Late Gothic tradition, emphasizing colour and pageantry rather than classical realism. His style is described as idiosyncratic, and he left no school of followers. He painted frescoes for churches in Florence, including the Creation and the Fall for the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, and the equestrian monument of Sir John Hawkwood. Around the mid-1450s he painted his three most famous panels depicting the Battle of San Romano for the Palazzo Medici. He married Tommasa Malifici by 1453, and had a son Donato and a daughter Antonia, who was a Carmelite nun and noted as a painter. Uccello died on 10 December 1475 in Florence and was buried in his father's tomb in Santo Spirito.

Reader's Guide

Paolo Uccello's significance lies in his pioneering work on visual perspective, which he used to create a feeling of depth in his paintings. Giorgio Vasari wrote that Uccello was obsessed by perspective and would stay up all night trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. His fresco of the Annunciation in Santa Maria Maggiore was considered the first example of how lines could be expertly used to demonstrate perspective and size, becoming a model for artists. His best known works, the three Battle of San Romano panels, feature extraordinarily foreshortened forms that accentuate his virtuosity as a draftsman. Despite working in the Late Gothic tradition with an emphasis on colour and pageantry, his idiosyncratic style left no school of followers. He has had some influence on twentieth-century art and literary criticism, appearing in works by Marcel Schwob, Antonin Artaud, and Bruno Tolentino. His legacy includes his precise, analytical attempts to apply a scientific method to depict objects in three-dimensional space.

Did You Know?

• His nickname Uccello means 'little bird' and came from his fondness for painting birds.
• He was apprenticed to the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti from 1412 to 1416.
• His daughter Antonia was a Carmelite nun noted as a painter on her death certificate, though none of her work survives.
• He painted the predella for an altarpiece in Urbino with scenes related to the antisemitic myth of host desecration.